


Soteriology

by mademoisellesansa



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Inquisitor who doesn't care about saving the world, One Shot, Romance, Slight Canon Divergence, Tragedy, not a Hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 14:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3898999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellesansa/pseuds/mademoisellesansa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soteriology, noun - the doctrine of salvation in a religion, or a process of spiritual transformation.</p><p>Inspired by Transistor. This is the story of an Inquisitor who is not a savior and has no desire to become one. Five times their paths cross and five times her world almost ends (+ one time it really does).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soteriology

**Author's Note:**

> "Too late for me, no reason to recover  
> If I should choose to rise I'm still descending  
> Never ending" - Signals from Transistor

_Is this how the world ends?_

_…_

_Good._

 

I.

She cannot see, but she can hear the rain, knocking a steady request for admission against the sealed windows. Metal hands are cold as they bind her arms. _My world could end tonight without a final glimpse of the sky_. The fragrance of the lyrium sings in her veins, the harmonies building in silver crescendo as the vial is held to her lips.

“Drink,” he says, in a voice that shakes like her heart. She hears his fear and is no longer afraid.

 

II.

Her voice is screaming, she can feel the strain of anguish tearing itself out of her throat, but she cannot hear it over the ringing, ringing, ringing. Lydia’s blood is hot and red as it spills between her fingers. _The only world I have ever known is ending_. The dust of a crumbling Circle chokes her lungs, pulled down and apart by the life she has repurposed for destruction.

The denial forces the breath back into her lungs and she sees lost brown eyes. She stands and takes a step.

 

 III.

Perhaps she has died and failed to realize it. She can no longer feel her body, but she can smell the burning of a hundred thousand other ones, a charred feast for crows. _This, then, is the end of the world – mages, templars, and Chantry, all burning together_. Whispering tongues taste her mind, spirits and demons alike lapping up the echoes of her existence.

A salty vinegar laced with sunlight sweetness interrupts her senses and she wonders why, in this field of death, he smells so alive.

 

IV.

“If we are to have a chance, if you are to have a chance – let that thing hear you!” No one and nothing will hear her now, a broken voice frozen and shattered by the wailing breath of winter. _If this were not the end, I might have loved him_. She wishes that she did not have to die alone, her last words forgotten by the snow.

His tears are scalding against her frosted skin and she feels herself thawing, from her heart on out.

 

V.

She can hear every beat of her heart as she climbs through the ruins of Skyhold. The cry of ravens and her own echo are the only voices to answer her pleas and time stiffens a little more with each familiar face whose eyes close beneath her trembling fingers. She finds him, standing in eternal defense with a sword in his hands, and time dies. Cullen’s lips taste a little like love and a little like despair.

_The end._

 

 VI.

The orb pulses like a living heart in her hands. Solas is yelling at her, telling her to seal the Breach and save the world. She thinks that is what he would have wanted too, for her to live and rebuild. She lets the Fade splinter and consume her. She thinks she doesn't care.

 

_The sky ends. The earth ceases. On and on, this hatred will see no rest._

\- “The Long Hatred Song” by Bai Ju-Yi, tr. Cecilia Tai

 

 


End file.
